brave new world
by dance life away
Summary: a collection of snippets/drabbles/whatevers. one minute jan is jumping out of a friend's car and crossing the street, but then it all goes to hell. or technically, deep space nine.
1. crash landing

**brave new world**

summary: a collection of snippets/drabbles/whatevers. one minute jan is jumping out of a friend's car and crossing the street, but then it all goes to hell. or technically, deep space nine.

disclaimer: nothing belongs to me, as per usual

so I had this crazy dream the other night after a DS9 marathon and that's how this plot bunny was born. don't judge me just because I had to get it out.

**brave new world: one**

* * *

"Thanks for the ride, Chris," she says, shutting the door maybe a little too hard, wincing because she knows what he'll say.

"Hey!" her friend exclaims, tossing her bag out the driver's window when she walks by. "What have I told you about taking your anger out on Red?"

"Yeah, I know!" is her distracted response and she doesn't realize how stupid she'd being. Doesn't notice that she forgets to check both ways again. Doesn't notice the light turned green a second before she starts to walk.

"JAN!"

Chris's voice is the last thing she hears before everything goes black.

The world comes back into focus in a disorienting rush, not slow or quiet or gradual. Suddenly everything is so bright it burns and there are so many voices she can't keep up.

"What do you mean she just appeared out of nowhere? She had to have come from somewhere!"

"I'm sure she did but I'm tellin' you she poofed in!"

"Are you certain she did not transport?"

"I think I know what it looks like when someone transports, Worf-"

"Excuse me?" her soft voice interrupts the torrent of words passing between the people standing around her. Jan is sitting up now, one hand on her head which feels like it's just been cracked open and sewn back together. The last thing she remembers is Chris and the street and oh God was that a car?

"Where am I?" she's just confused, none of it makes sense. it's like she's trapped in a 90s sci fi movie with all the bleeping and blinking panels everywhere and the ugly, weird uniforms. this is a dream, she thinks. this has to be a really bad dream.

"You are on the Federation spacestation Deep Space Nine," replies the tall and strong looking dark skinned man, and that's when Jan notices the other dark skinned man...well man isn't really the right word.

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!" she exclaims, eyes so wide as she stares. His forehead has spikes, for Chrissake. It doesn't even cross her mind yet to ask what the fuck is the federation and how are they on a space station?

"You have never seen a Klingon before?" the spikes are still all she can look at even though the man, creature, question mark?! spoke to her.

"Klingon? Is that why your forehead has its own mountain range?" she asks, the words tumbling out of her mouth before she can stop them. "And what's the Federation? Like...the Russian Federation? You don't look like Putin and this doesn't look like the Kremlin. Wait, spacestation? This is not the fucking International Space Station..."

The group looks at her like she's the one with forehead spikes or a fifth eye or something. The one with the blue undershirt comes closer to examine her while the other three talk to themselves. With the gadgets in his hands she thinks he must be a doctor. Or maybe a mad scientist. She bats his hands away, frowning.

"What is the current stardate?" asks a woman with short, red hair and a less ugly uniform.

"Stardate? I don't even know what that means!" Jan grumbles. "As for the regular date, last I checked it was September 9th, 2012 and the last thing I remember was it being the morning, so-"

"2012?" the bald one asks, this time his brows are furrowed but head cocked like he's curious.

"That's what I said, isn't it? How long have I been out then, like a few days at the most, right?"

They look at each other, then at her, then back to each other. She wonders what on earth is going on. How did she end up at some nerd con or crazy Halloween party? Nothing is making any sense.

"The current year as you would put it is 2374." The Klingon? tells her and in very un-Jan-like fashion, she faints.

* * *

this isn't going to be a full fledged story. just a bunch of scenes, some of them close together in chronology and some not. I'm really bad at writing actually developed stories so this is easier. the kind of crackshit that comes to me in my dreams...haha


	2. mother of mercy

**brave new world**

summary: a collection of snippets/drabbles/whatevers. one minute jan is jumping out of a friend's car and crossing the street, but then it all goes to hell. or technically, deep space nine.

disclaimer: nothing belongs to me, as per usual

so I had this crazy dream the other night after a DS9 marathon and that's how this plot bunny was born. the first few are close together chronologically but after that I'm kind of just writing them in whatever order I feel like. be warned

* * *

_brave new world: two_

They let her out of the infirmary that night. Physically she is fine, they say, and the important thing is that she's comfortable. Jan is tempted to ask how she's supposed to be comfortable some 400 years in the future but figures that will just make them force more counseling sessions on her. So she keeps quiet, although it is quite unlike her to keep her mouth shut. Her reputation has always been one of talking too much and having poor tact.

Julian, the doctor, shows her to her "quarters," which she thinks is a funny word. Jan comments offhandedly that she will never get around to calling it that. He apologizes and explains he cannot stay to show her around further at the moment. Jan is only half listening but apparently it is someone's birthday or something and they are celebrating. Jan thinks sadly that there is nothing for her to celebrate.

Looking around, her first observation is that her room is simple, with a bed and a bathroom and a couch. It has what they say is a replicator. She feels uncomfortable using it, eating the food from it. It's funny because nuked food never bothered Jan but apparently replicated food does, just in principle. She doesn't think it tastes as good as real food, the only kind of food she's ever known. But it makes her bubble tea and and cupcakes, so she eats anyway.

Jan tries to sleep, really she does, but it takes forever. All she can think of is her home, so very far away and even then it's just a planet. The earth she could go and visit is not her home. None of the people who made it her home are even alive! They have been dead for centuries, six feet under for longer than this beloved Federation of the people on this station had even been in existence. The same Federation who says time travel is restricted, controlled, unreliable. There is no way to send her home, they said to her in the infirmary. She feels like she is drowning. How is she supposed to do this? Why her? She realizes everything and everyone she has ever known or loved is gone forever.

Jan she cries herself to sleep for what she knows will not be the last time.

The next day the doctor, Julian, is back to show her the station. He takes her to what he says is the Promenade. It's clear she really is on a space station because when she looks up and sees nothing but cold, dark space and a planet out of the large windows. For a minute Jan is so excited because she's in space! SPACE! How exciting and she can't believe it and then she remembers exactly what it means and Julian notices her slight twitch of a smile turn right back into a frown. Suddenly the idea of space, once something so fascinating to Jan, so alive in the ethos of her culture, terrifies her. Julian looks uncomfortable and shifts his body like he is about to change the subject when something catches Jan's eye.

"What's that?" she asks, pointing at a room with a strange symbol on the wall from which a group of people leave. At first she thinks they are human like her but Jan notices their noses. And suddenly she sees the bumps on a lot of people around her. Vaguely she remembers the redheaded woman, Major Kira, and her nose too. But clearly Jan had been too distracted by the Klingon. Commander Worf, they tell her his name is. All these titles make her head spin.

"A Bajoran temple," Julian answers. "This station is located by their home planet, Bajor. They have their religious services there, they go to pray..."

Her ears practically perk up when she hears the word 'pray.' Her heart just about leaps out of her chest and she has to chase it into the temple to get it back.

"Can...can we go in there?" she asks, voice so quiet he can barely hear her. "I think I might like to pray right now."

Julian looks surprised but takes her over. He doesn't go inside with her though, says it wouldn't be right. When she asks why he says he isn't a believer, he has no gods, and she wonders why not. But it gets brushed aside when she goes into the temple and feels immediately at ease. The Bajorans might not be of the same faith as Jan but the room is all about reverence and peace and that's what is important. She lights a candle and kneels, aware in that moment that she still wears her grandmother's rosary around her neck. Is it okay to pray to one God in the temple of another, she wonders? Hesitating, her fingers linger on the beads before decisively and yet carefully removing them. Maybe it is not but since this is an emergency, it will have to be okay. So that's what she does for the next hour or so... hail mary's, our father's, fatima prayers, glory be's, and hail holy queen's. She doesn't know a thing about where she is but her faith is all she has, so Jan clings to it like a child does its mother.

_glory be to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: a world without end. amen._

She forgets all about Julian and Deep Space Nine for a while. It is bliss.

_hail, holy queen, mother of mercy. hail our life, our sweetness, and our hope. to you do we cry, poor banished children of eve. to you do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears..._

* * *

okay so this one was a bit more serious than the first. and if there's any star trek incarnation I'd throw a catholic into, it'd be DS9. it'll be something she struggles with but not an epic part of this, considering it's a collection of oneshots.

also in case anyone is curious Jan lands herself here sometime between seasons 4 and 5. I won't write her into entire episodes but there'll be references to a few notable episodes in each season. hopefully.


	3. the education of jan malusky pt 1

**brave new world**

summary: a collection of snippets/drabbles/whatevers. one minute jan is jumping out of a friend's car and crossing the street, but then it all goes to hell. or technically, deep space nine.

disclaimer: nothing belongs to me, as per usual

* * *

_brave new world: three_

In her "old life" - what Jan has dubbed who she was before she either lost her mind, went into a coma, or somehow actually traveled in time - Jan considered herself pretty tech-savvy. She did, after all, grow up in a time where new and exciting technology was coming out every day and accessible to a good number of the public. She was considered bright, too; what feels like only months ago she graduated at the top of her college class. It is a miracle she even got a college education in the first place.

But now that she's in the 24th century, Jan feels like a simpleton. Now she knows how her grandfather felt around computers and kids like her who, while trying to explain things to him, would give him "how can you not get this" looks as they typed away with ease. It is the exact same exasperated look Jadzia Dax gives her most days. Lieutenant Commander Jadzia Dax, lucky duck, is given the seemingly menial task of helping Jan adjust to her new surroundings, particularly the changes in technology. People in the 24th century don't seem to realize how difficult it will be for her to catch up. More than anything, it makes Jan hyper aware of how far away from home she is. It makes her feel _old_.

Physically, she might be 21, but number wise, she is exactly 382 years old. If she understands stardates right, her 383rd birthday is quickly approaching in a matter of four months. Her birthday will consequently mark five months on board Deep Space Nine. Jan isn't sure if she's ready for that.

"This is a holosuite!" Dax says excitedly as the pair enter an empty room. "We talked about this yesterday, the way it uses interactive holographic technology. You simply tell the computer which program you'd like to run, and everything comes to life..."

But Jan's mind is elsewhere. Transporters, Replicators, PADDs, Holosuites. It's all like another language. Some of the things remind her of technology at home, or at least much evolved technology from back home. PADDs, for instance, are like much more complex tablets (not that she ever owned one). Holosuites, too, seem to her the culmination of the 3-D tech that she so abhorred back home. 3-D movies, 3-D TVS. Jan wears glasses, though (even though Dr. Bashir is always urging her to let him perform a simple procedure to fix her eyesight. So far she resists), and so they never appealed to her. She remembers seeing the 3-D version of the Fright Night remake and being astonished by a David Tennant and Anton Yelchin she could almost reach out and touch. But wearing glasses on top of her glasses gave her a headache, they kept falling down, et cetera. But there is no such problem within the holosuites.

"Jan? Jan! Anyone home in there?" Dax's voice breaks her from her thoughts and her eyes snap back into focus.

"You know, I remember the first time I played on a computer," she begins, reminding herself of her grandparents and other old people who loved to tell "when I was your age" stories. "It was this game where like King Kong or something jumped from the top of skyscrapers grabbing after bananas. The graphics were terrible - pixel-y and green with a plain, black background. Kind of Pong-esque. Hell, I remember dial-up internet connections. The first time my family got a cordless phone and how cool it was, or when we got caller-ID. Can you imagine how weird this is for me?"

"You know I have seven lifetimes worth of memories I didn't technically live," Dax says conversationally, sort of changing the subject. "Some of my species, Trills, are joined with symbiotic lifeforms. When a host dies, the symbiont is transferred to a new host, along with the memories of all previous hosts. We adopt the name of the symbiont as our surnames."

"Really?" Jan asks, curious and very interested. "How old is...Dax, then?"

"Dax was born in 2018. Married six times, as bride and groom."

"Wait, so you've been a guy before?"

"My previous host, Curzon, was a man, yes," Dax sounds very amused by Jan's line of questioning.

"What is that like?"

"People are people, Jan. Gender doesn't make any difference, what makes it interesting is the actual individual. Have I got some stories for you! During my first year on Deep Space Nine, Curzon was accused of murder and I was tried..."

And after that Jan is distracted from her worries at least momentarily. Dax runs a program in which she learns about the most famous Klingon hero, Kahless, the first warrior king and emperor, whom Dax explains is the greatest warrior of them all.

"That was...interesting," Jan remarks afterwards. "Is that why Commander Worf always seems so angry?"

"I think we should forgo technology for now and focus on a...cross-cultural education, don't you?" Dax suggests with a laugh, ignoring Jan's question about the commander. She takes it as a yes.

* * *

here you go! I'm currently working on one or two more at the moment, since these are quick and generally easy to write. Still situated somewhere between seasons 4&5. When a chapter goes into a different year or season or whatever, I'll note it at the beginning of the chapter. But right now most of the stuff I'm writing is in this ambiguous period.


	4. the education of jan malusky pt 2

**brave new world**

summary: a collection of snippets/drabbles/whatevers. one minute jan is jumping out of a friend's car and crossing the street, but then it all goes to hell. or technically, deep space nine.

disclaimer: nothing belongs to me, as per usual

* * *

_brave new world: four_

Each day, Jan is torn between believing four things: 1) she has completely lost her mind and is probably sitting in a mental institution right now; 2) after getting hit by the car, she has gone into a coma and this is a sign she's not brain dead; 3) this is all just an elaborate dream she just hasn't woken up from yet; and 4) somehow, by some miracle/cruel twist of fate/completely accident, she has actually been transported to the 24th century.

She's kind of clinging to numbers 3 and 2 as being the truth. Number 3 is her preferred option, 2 is the best alternative, 1 is not ideal but she can live with it, and 4 is worse case scenario. Why? If she's in a coma, then there's the possibility that she might wake up. If she's insane, there's a possibility that she can get better with treatment. If it's just a dream, she'll definitely wake up. But if she's really in the 24th century...then she's stuck. There is no way home. Apparently, some sort of time travel technology exists, but it's unstable and kept under lock and key and regulated. If time travel happens, which apparently it does from time to time, it's pretty much always an accident. "Accident" doesn't even cover her situation, though. She considers it a poor descriptor for being ripped from absolutely everything familiar and being transported to another part of the galaxy nearly 400 years into the future.

At the moment, Jan is standing in the replimat with a frustrated look on her face. She can't remember the correct buttons to push to get the damn thing to display options. It's a neat bit of technology, sure, but she quickly descends into her usual way of dealing with miscreant appliances and gadgets: lecturing it and giving it a good thump.

"Why do you have to be so difficult?" she asks, hands on her hips and glare directed at the silent machine.

"What's the problem?" pipes a familiar voice, belonging to one Dr. Julian Bashir.

"Well, this thing does more than just food and stuff right? I know you guys gave me a PADD but I just want some ordinary paper and pen and I don't know how to do this!"

Julian shakes his head in amusement, but it only causes her to make a face at him. Not everyone is a genius, she thinks, aggravated. He presses a button here and a button there and then turns to her.

"College ruled?" he asks in a voice that suggests he doesn't really know what that means, and she shakes her head no. Another button pressed. "One notebook."

The machine makes a tiny whirring noise and it materializes below. Julian looks at her with an expectant "now you try" look one his face.

"Uh..." Jan fumbles. "One...pen, please?"

It too appears, in the same manner as the notebook. She grabs it and then the book from Julian's hands, still embarrassed at her complete lack of knowledge as to how to do anything on the stupid space station.

"How did you do that?" she asks, arms crossed.

"It's a simple matter of programming. It was programmed to only take food and drink orders, so I simply changed it temporarily for what you need. You know there's one of these in your quarters?"

"Um, well, I may or may not have kicked it in frustration and it doesn't really work anymore, sooo..."

"I'll make a note for Chief O'Brien to make sure it gets put on the repairs list. For future reference, hitting these things only makes it worse." Julian laughs at her.

"Yeah, yeah," she grumbles. "Old habits die hard, what can I say?"


	5. america's favorite pastime

**brave new world**

summary: a collection of snippets/drabbles/whatevers. one minute jan is jumping out of a friend's car and crossing the street, but then it all goes to hell. or technically, deep space nine.

disclaimer: nothing belongs to me, as per usual

stardate: 2373 (Jake is 18, Jan is 22), season 5.

* * *

_brave new world: five_

The first time Jan notices Jake Sisko, he is with his father. She's sitting at Quark's bar; it's been a particularly rough day so far so she's decided to try and drink her feelings. She's only on her first gin when the Siskos walk down the winding steps from the holosuites. It's not exactly an unusual sight, but something catches her eye: in Jake's hand is a baseball glove and Captain Sisko has a ball in his hand.

It takes her awhile to work up to the courage to approach Jake and ask him about baseball. They've never really spoken before so just walking up to him and being all "hey! I was creeping a few weeks ago and saw you with a baseball glove! do you play?" isn't a particular talent of hers. She stays quiet, and waits (hopes?) for something else to be a reason to approach him. The perfect opportunity presents itself when Jake, who apparently is an aspiring writer, gets a piece about the Battle of Ajilon Prime published and she happens to read it.

"You're Jake, right?" is the first thing she says to him when she finally just makes herself walk up to him on the Promenade.

"Yeah...you're that girl who appeared out of nowhere, right?" he asks, eyebrows raised.

"Oh yeah, that's me. Jan Malusky, girl who appeared out of nowhere," she jokes, feeling awkward. "Um, anyway, I wanted to tell you I read your article, you know. It was real interesting and yeah, congratulations on getting it published."

"Thanks," he says, looking a little surprised. "Good interesting or bad interesting?"

"Good interesting. I liked that you chose to talk about war in a gritty, real way, not glorious or patriotic. Reminded me of Hemingway or The Red Badge of Courage, I guess."

From there they form a friendship. She learns that Jake is eighteen, wants to be a full-time writer, and before living on Deep Space Nine, he lived on Mars, and before that on a starship. His grandfather lives in New Orleans, and Jan promptly asks him questions about it, wondering how different it is than the one she knew.

"What about you?" he questions, and at first Jan isn't sure if she can say. As if sensing the meaning of her reluctance, he continues: "My dad, uh, told me about...where you're from. So I already know that part."

"Well...I'm from Cleveland, Ohio. I wasn't born there, though, but when I was pretty young we moved up there from North Carolina because it's where my parents were from. My grandparents moved there from Poland after World War two. Three sisters and a brother plus my mom and my dad. Big supporters of Cleveland sports - baseball, especially, but football and basketball too. I graduated from liberal arts college in Ohio with a religious studies degree. Didn't really know what I wanted to do. Still don't."

"Baseball?" he asks, suddenly, visible excited. "What team would that be?"

"The Cleveland Indians. It was rough...if you know anything about Cleveland sports, you'd understand!"

Jake invites her to play from time to time after that, and she goes the first time. Except she's terrible. Her forte is watching, not playing, she explains. Then on the eighth month anniversary of her arrival, Jake says he has a surprise for her. He takes her to the holosuite and it's a baseball game. More than that, it's a familiar stadium. Suddenly it all dawns on Jan and she wants to hug the shit out of Jake Sisko.

"What year is this?" she asks, eyes wide, seeking confirmation for what she already knows to be true.

"2018. Game seven of the World Series between the Indians and the Reds," he explains, a goofy grin slapped across his face, like he knows how much she is about to freak out. Which she does. It is almost like being at home. Jake explains that in true Indian fashion, they had led the series early on, winning three games in a row, and promptly losing three more after that. As she watches, the Tribe scores a run in the first inning and the second; they let the Reds catch up in the third, which is disappointing, but she's seen worse. In the fifth inning Cleveland sneaks in a run but in the sixth and seventh leave men on base while the Reds jump ahead by a run. And then at the top of the 9th they let the Reds score by an embarrassing display from the Indian's shortstop, leaving them trailing by 2. Jan accepts that they will lose, that it will be fucking 1997 all over again. _Damn yo_u, she thinks at the bottom of the ninth as the bases are loaded with two outs and the score is still 5-3 and they have come to the bottom of the line-up. She imagines that her mother is (was?) probably crying at this point.

But then a miracle happens. A player she's never heard of, with a rather average ERA comes up to bat...and hits a grand slam. A motherfucking grand slam and she's on her feet screaming and hugging Jake and she can't believe it. They won. After 70 years of royally fucking up, they _finally_ won! The roar of the crowd is in her ears and suddenly, rather painfully, her mind goes back to her mom. Her poor mom who stuck by Cleveland with devotion her entire life, waiting for even one of the teams to win a championship title. Through Rick Manning, Albert Bell, Jim Thome, CC Sabathia, Grady Sizemore, and more. "Next year" is (was?) finally "this year." Her tears of joy turn into wracking sobs of loneliness and homesickness. She can hear Jake asking her what is wrong but she doesn't respond. She is glad Jake did this for her, really, but Jan would give anything to have watched this on TV with her family, to see her mother's tears and the whoops and shouts , to hear her brother say what a fucking miracle it was for the shitty Tribe to finally pull through. To get drunk with them in celebration and run into the streets and to actually live the experience of Cleveland _winning_ something. Instead, she is in a holosuite watching a ballgame that happened more than 300 years ago on a space station light years away from her home planet, forget her hometown.

"Computer, end program!" she manages to choke out between the years, ignoring Jake's concerned look and rushing out, even though it means she will have to run through Quark's and the Promenade crying. That's how desperate she is to get away and back to her quarters because the only cure is for her to just cry it out. She'll have to apologize to Jake later, but she just can't do this. In a second, she is gone.

* * *

baseball bonding! I've been planning this one forever. remnants of home for poor Jan. it is also a tribute to my own mom. here's to hoping, Cleveland.


End file.
